"We learned on January 31 that Barnes & Noble had suffered a major setback in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Microsoft. That day, an administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission had tossed out the company's key defense, that Microsoft was engaging in 'patent misuse' as part of a larger scheme to 'kill Android'. Today the full opinion has been made public." Microsoft's protection racket might be legal, but that doesn't make it moral. It's based on software patents, and is thus, by definition, morally reprehensible and sleazy.